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K-State men face week of challenging tests

Kansas State guard Will Spradling, left, says "players are starting to learn their roles."

Kansas State's Nino Williams, left, and the Wildcats are battling injuries heading into their game against Gonzaga.

MANHATTAN — It’s finals week for students at Kansas State, and coach Bruce Weber has carried that theme over to the basketball court for his players.

Riding a five-game winning streak after a 72-43 victory over Troy on Sunday, the Wildcats go from that pop quiz into the high-level tests the remainder of the month. K-State (7-3) faces No. 21 Gonzaga (10-1) in the Wichita Wildcat Classic at INTRUST Bank Arena on Saturday, then it’s Tulane in the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Hoops Winter Festival on Dec. 28 and a home game against George Washington on Dec. 31.

“We have finals but I told the guys these last three games are like our finals of the nonconference,” Weber said. “We have to get ready for finals. We’ll do weights and form shooting (Monday). Tuesday we have to have a decent practice. We can’t expect too much but we have to be solid starting our preparation for Gonzaga. Wednesday they’re off and we have exams all day, Thursday it has to be big-time practice and Friday we’ll head down to Wichita and hopefully we have a great crowd and see if we can get the Zags.”

The Wildcats aced their tune-up test for the stretch run by easily dispatching Troy, jumping to a 14-2 lead and never looking back.

“We’ve been practicing a lot better,” guard Will Spradling said. “Players are starting to learn their roles and really understand how we want to play and what works for us.”

The Wildcats showed signs of progress offensively. While they didn’t shoot exceptionally well — 28 of 65 overall and 8 of 24 on 3-pointers — the ball movement and motion was crisper with Troy in a zone defense much of the game.

“We’ve talked about that, make the extra pass,” Weber said. “The freshmen are starting to get a little better. I thought we cut the middle and got it to Shane (Southwell), who had seven assists and no turnovers and made some nice passes out of that.

“Part of it is our zone offense, we’ve been so far out you can’t even see the middle. You’re so far out, there’s no angle. We’ve really emphasized flattening the zone out, swinging it and swinging it and getting it inside to move the defense inside-outside. We went high-post to low-post a couple of times and got some layups.”

Coach Mark Few’s Bulldogs will be the first ranked team K-State has played this season. It’s a rematch of last year’s Battle in Seattle won by Gonzaga, 68-52.

“They smacked us pretty bad last year in Seattle and it was a good learning tool for us,” Weber said. “Mark’s teams have gotten tougher and tougher, led by (Kevin) Pangos, one of the more experienced guards. In their comeback win over West Virginia the other night, he kind of took over the game.

“(Gary) Bell is a very good player. I’ve played them, I think, all four years of those guys and we’ve played Mark’s teams many times throughout the last 10 years. They’re tougher than they used to be and they play better defense. They don’t have a Kelly Olynyk or a (Elias) Harris, who seemed to be there forever. They’re probably more guard oriented but we can’t let their big guys be big factors. That will be the challenge.”

TRAINING ROOM BUSY — Weber described the Wildcats as being “boogered up” with several players — including Wesley Iwundu, Nigel Johnson and Nino Williams — dealing with nagging injuries.

“It’s everyone but Will,” he said. “We barely had enough for practice (Saturday).”

Marcus Foster, who scored 14 points, limped into the postgame press conference with ice on his ankle. He scored five points the first five minutes of the second half, then took a seat on the bench the remainder of the day.

“Marcus got tweaked,” Weber said. “The first few minutes were key in the second half, then he got some rest.”

THOMAS COMING SOON — Freshman point guard Jevon Thomas is eligible to join the team Saturday, after the official end of the first semester Friday.

Weber said the first game Thomas would play will be Tulane on Dec. 28 after one week of practice.